


Now You’re Nothing More Than a Silhouette

by purpleeyesandbowties



Category: EOS 10 (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Lots of Angst, M/M, im actually sorry about this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleeyesandbowties/pseuds/purpleeyesandbowties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now I wake up and I forget that you are gone/A phantom limb is all that I am hanging on/So don’t stop, no stopping it yet/What if the one true love’s the only one that you get?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now You’re Nothing More Than a Silhouette

**Author's Note:**

> for the full effect, please listen to One Love by Marianas Trench (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVefp5tHa_4)  
> im...yeah, im sorry

_Now I wake up and I forget that you are gone_

_A phantom limb is all that I am hanging on_

_So don’t stop, no stopping it yet_

_What if the one true love’s the only one that you get?_

\-- 

Ryan stumbled into his quarters, drunk off his ass. His gaze roamed around the room, finally landing on the man half-sitting, half-lying in a pile of blankets in his bed.

“Akmazian,” he slurred, reaching out. His breath rushed out in a rush of overwhelming relief. Why? Akmazian was always waiting up for him, every night. Why should this night be different? Ah, well. He was too drunk to care. At least he had company for what was gonna be a bitch of a hangover.

He had gotten smashed because…..he frowned. He couldn’t remember. Something happened. It must have been major because he hadn’t been this drunk since he’d been running the streets. Maybe Jane’d gotten a promotion or Levi got his kingdom back or something. Ryan decided to deal with that in the morning. For now, he wanted Akmazian’s comforting warmth and weight next to him. He wanted cuddles too. _So_ many cuddles.

“Babe,” he said, realizing he’d been swaying on the spot for the past half-minute, just staring at Akmazian. Akmazian was watching him silently, his blue eyes solemn and sad. Damn, Ryan must be in a bad shape for Akmazian to look so serious. “What’s wrong, babe?”

Akmazian cleared his throat. Ryan could have sworn he saw tears in the man’s eyes but Akmazian would have no reason to cry. Would he?

“Just come back to bed,” Akmazian said, pulling back the covers for Ryan. Ryan nodded slowly, careful not to let his head roll away with the motion.  
He wriggled out of his work scrubs and into some sleep pants, then crawled in next to Akmazian. The whole time, Akmazian never took his eyes off of him. He didn’t look sad anymore, just….tired. His eyes were filled with pity that Ryan didn’t understand. He didn’t like it.

“You have no idea, do you?” Akmazian asked softly.

“Hmm?” Ryan mumbled. “What’d you say, Ak?”

“You don’t remember. Maybe it’s better that way.”

Akmazian smiled tightly, looking as if he’d rather burst into tears. Ryan frowned. Even in his current state, he couldn’t mistake the look on his boyfriend’s face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching a hand up to cup Akmazian’s cheek. Akmazian leaned into the touch, his hand covering Ryan’s own.  They stayed like that for a few long moments, Akmazian breathing deeply. Gradually, Akmazian’s head dropped onto Ryan’s shoulder. He made a small noise, somewhere between a whimper and a sob.

“H-hey,” Ryan said. “Don’t cry.”

Akmazian shook his head, shoulders hunched, gripping Ryan’s sides tightly.

“You don’t know. You’re too drunk to know. And this is…this is all we get.” Bitterly, he laughed. “You won’t remember in the morning.”

“Akmazian…..you’re not crying because of me, are you? I’m—I’m sorry, whatever I did. Please don’t cry.”

“Oh, darlin’,” Akmazian said, face still buried in Ryan’s shoulder. “My darling. Always so good to me.”

“Akmazian, you’re better for me than me for you,” Ryan said, knowing that that sentence didn’t quite make sense. He knew Akmazian would get what he meant.

“I love you,” Akmazian said. He said it like it was the most important thing to ever pass his lips, like it was world-changing information. Like he always said it.

“Love you, too,” Ryan yawned. “I’ll love you more in the morning after I sleep a little, though.”

Akmazian gripped him tighter for a moment, panicked. As suddenly as he had grabbed Ryan, he relaxed. He let go completely, he bent his head, the curtain of his hair hiding his face. When he spoke, his voice shook so badly Ryan could hardly understand him.

“Okay. Go to sleep, Ry. I love you. Remember that. I love you so damn much, Ryan, I love you more than anyone has loved anyone before.”

Ryan paused. Something wasn’t right here. But the room was spinning, his head spinning with it, and he was warm and heavy with alcohol and the solid presence of his lover next to him. In the morning, he decided. He’d get the whole story out of Akmazian in the morning, when he could think without it hurting again.

“Hey, I love you too.”

Ryan laid a sloppy kiss on the edge of Akmazian’s mouth. His lips twitched upward for a moment. Carefully, reverently, Akmazian took Ryan’s face in his hands and kissed him. He kissed him thoroughly, deeply, enough to make Ryan squirm with pleasure.

“What’s that about?” he asked, chasing Akmazian’s lips as he pulled away. He planted more kisses on Akmazian’s cheekbones, his chin.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Hmm? What did you say?” Ryan asked. He was only half paying attention, distracted by the way Akmazian’s hair tangled in his fingers. It was so soft. It was unreal how soft his hair was. Like an angel’s. And his skin was so warm and smooth.  Akmazian had a thousand little scars, but in the dim light of the room, Ryan couldn’t see a single one. Nor could he feel them under his fingers, which was strange because he had mapped those scars out before, knew each one by heart, could identify them by touch alone. Softly, Akmazian pushed away Ryan’s wandering hands.

“I missed you,” he repeated.

“Missed you too, love,” Ryan said, snuggling in next to Akmazian. He could feel Akmazian running his hands through Ryan’s hair. He was always so gentle. So kind. Why had it taken Ryan so long to see what was in front of him? Why did he wait so long to fall in love? If only he’d known how incandescently happy Akmazian could make him—he wouldn’t have wasted a single moment.

Ryan drifted off to sleep, the silhouette of Akmazian next to him, warm and safe, and so in love.

\--

He woke up alone.

“Akmazian?” he murmured, splaying a hand across the other side of the bed. His hand met silky sheets, cold and neat. He sat up, wincing at the pounding in his head. Akmazian’s side of the bed was perfectly made. Military-style, hospital corners, like Akmazian could never manage to make. In a flash, Ryan thought back to the previous morning, when he’d made the bed. Akmazian had been in the shower and Morpheus kept getting in his way. But Akmazian would have messed up the sheets last night. So why were they…?

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck, fuck_.”

Ryan leapt out of bed, memories flooding in.

A gun that came from no where, a faceless shooter in the middle of the food court. The shot ringing out louder than anything he’d ever heard. Akmazian, standing completely still, his face a perfect snapshot of surprise. His body hitting the ground. And the sound of that was louder than the gunshot, the echo of it still running on repeat in Ryan’s head. The rush of _get him to the infirmary, surgery (him watching helplessly from the other side of the glass), get him stable_ , and the absolute stillness of Akmazian. The terrible quiet of the heart monitors. Ryan had seen death before—he’d caused death before—but not like this. Not on this side of the glass.

 

 “No,” he whispered. Then again, “no, no, no,” louder and louder, like repeating it enough times would make it untrue.

 His legs gave out and he sank to the floor. Hands shaking, he tapped the comms unit on his wrist. It chimed, but he couldn’t force out any words.

“Ryan, I’m sending a message to Jane right now,” the Inferface’s concerned voice told him. He flinched away from the sound, curling in on himself.

Jane was at his side in a matter of moments, though it felt like eons to Ryan. A cool hand touched his neck. He jumped away.

“Hey, easy!” Jane said, holding up her hands. “It’s just me, Ryan.”

“Jane….please tell me. Tell me he’s alright. It was just a fucked-up dream, right?”

Jane’s face crumpled. “Oh, Ryan. I’m so sorry.”

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, unable to stop the hot rush of tears forcing their way out. “But….but he talked to me. Last night, he talked to me.”

Slowly, Jane shook her head. “Ryan, I watched the video feed for your room all night. You—you insisted you wanted to be alone, but we wanted to make sure you were okay—and no one was here. It was just you.”

Ryan gave up. He screamed, letting the sobs wrack his body again and again. Jane wrapped her arms around him, shushing him. She rocked him back and forth, whispering nonsense comfort that he tuned out anyway.

In his mind, he replayed the conversation from the previous night, muzzy from the alcohol. He understood the pain and pity in Akmazian’s eyes and he hated, _hated_ it.

“It hurts,” he managed. There were no words and so many words for the terrible, crushing pressure in his chest. But those two words were the only ones he could force out, so he just repeated them.

“Shh, shh,” Jane said soothingly. “Ryan, I know. I know it hurts so bad. I know. You’ll be okay.”

\--

He wasn't okay. Not for a while. The funeral—if it could be called that—was attended by Jane, Levi, Urvidian, and no one else. Ryan watched from the back of the room as they lowered Akmazian’s body into the pyre. Afterwards, they gave him the ashes collected in a little clay pot, and an Alliance flag folded in a triangle. It wasn’t quite regulation—Akmazian’s name was never cleared and Ryan wasn’t his legal husband—but who the fuck cared, anyway?

The pot of ashes sat in a corner of Ryan’s room. He took a month off from work, doing very little besides cuddling with Morpheus and touching the small pile of Akmazian’s belongings Levi brought up from the cargo bay. Every night, Ryan sat up for hours, staring at the other side of the bed, wishing to see a silhouette there. Drunk, sober, drunk again. One terrible night, high.

After that night, he started getting better. He realized that Akmazian wouldn’t want this for him. So he got help. Slowly, he stopped crying every night, and he started going back to work.

 A year passed, then two. He got an offer to move to a bigger, nicer room. He declined it. He got an offer for a promotion that would take him away from EOS 10. He declined it. He had been checking the other side of the bed every night for years.

Akmazian never came back.

 The third time they offered him a promotion, he accepted.

He never went back to EOS 10 again.

\--

_What if I wake up tonight and you are real?_

_What if we could find a way to try to heal?_

_But if there’s no stopping us yet,_

_What if the one true love’s the only one that you get?_

_What if there was still a reason not to go?_

_What if there was still a little bit of hope?_

_What if the one true love’s the only one that you get?_

**Author's Note:**

> im sadhipstercat on tumblr if you want to yell at me for this.
> 
> the lyrics at the beginning and end are from One Love by Marianas Trench, as is the title


End file.
